1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a mobile-module plant for the development and the production of biotechnological products on a pilot scale comprising equipments for the production, separation, purification and finishing of said products.
2. Related Art and other Considerations
Firms of a biotechnologicaL character carry out essentially two types of activity: applied research and production.
Passage from one activity to the other implies the development of the production method on a pilot scale. Usually, the pilot plant is then also used for commercial production, at least until the quantity of the product required by the market does not impose the construction of a plant on a larger scale.
The development step on a pilot scale causes different types of problems to the entrepreneur facing them, first of all the financial resources.
Firms having sufficient financial means generally build a plant specific for the product under development. But this solution is not exempt from drawbacks; indeed, investments, in addition to being difficult to estimate, imply the purchase and installation of equipments that cannot usually be reused. Thus, when development has a negative result, the investment is a total loss. In addition, during development, the need can arise of having to use apparatus that are different from those already installed so that, even in this case, efforts and investments already made are brought to nought if the necessary changes cannot be made due to a lack of time or space. The time required to build a specific plant is fairly long, generally of the order of two years, and this causes a corresponding delay in the start of production, with a substantial increase in the project's financial risk. In fact, delays of this magnitude are well-known to be very dangerous in sectors subject to highly rapid technological development such as is the current case with biotechnoloy, because they may make obsolete the product and the development process, even during the plant's construction phase.
In turn, firms having insufficient financial resources find themselves in the position of having to entrust the development to firms specialized in third-party manufacturing, thus divulging their know-how and laying the foundations for possible conflicts in relation to the paternity of possible inventive contributions during the course of development.